Following a period of consultation, our application for the carriage shed will be brought before the planning committee of Oswestry Borough Council this week. Speakers both for (including a representative from the Trust) and against the proposals will be presenting their case. The outcome will be reported here as soon as possible.

One thing that has become obvious during the last couple of years, is that when we start to expand towards Oswestry, we will need more coaching stock than the DMU units provide us. We currently have 8 coaches earmarked for use in the future, all requiring varying amounts of work done on them to allow them to be used for passenger services.

To restore all these carriages in the required time scale is hard enough, without relying on the vagaries of the British climate for Tony Warren and his team to be able to work on them on a regular basis.

It has therefore been decided that the only way forward is to construct a small carriage shed somewhere on the line to enable restoration work to continue, irrespective of the weather conditions. Owing to the small amount of land available to us it has been decided to plan for this small shed to be constructed on a small parcel of land parallel to what is known a Haystack siding. Positioning it here will enable it to be screened from view, and far enough away that it does not affect our neighbours.

Based on this, a public meeting was arranged, on 10th October, where the preceding facts were presented to the local residents, and fully discussed. A document describing what we propose, and some of the views of the local residents is attached here.

At the end of the meeting a questionnaire was issued, where the views of the local residents could be collected and analysed, and although only 9 were returned from 30-35 residents present that night, attached is a pictorial representation of the general feeling about the Railway project, and the issue of the carriage shed.